Blog Retrospective
The original idea was to set up a blog that would be just about one place itself and nothing at all about the writer. In that it aimed to be contary to nearly all blogs so was inevitably going to fail. A tour around the blogging world will confirm that most people write about themselves first and their subject(s) next. In fact many write just about themselves and not much more. The idea here was that Blacka Moor should be the subject, the whole subject and ‘nowt but’. The first title chosen was Blacka Moor – A Sense of Place. After a bit that started to look clichéd and even pretentious so the last four words were quietly dropped. But there had been some point in that original title. And it did bring in the human element by implication. The personal subtext says that knowing one place well makes a difference to people. It gives a person a feeling of having roots - even if those roots have been transplanted from a different beginning. And keeping in touch with the ground in which those roots grow gives a certain perspective on the world. It would be absurdly fanciful to believe it makes you a better person but at least plausible that it makes you a different kind of person to those who drift from one novel experience to another without reflecting. A sense of place is about the character and atmosphere of a place and about the way the senses respond to the experience of it day by day. People may be untutored in ecology and inexpert in the identification of flora and fauna but still be authoritative to a degree on the character and sense of a place; and that is an aspiration not a claim.
The original idea was to set up a blog that would be just about one place itself and nothing at all about the writer. In that it aimed to be contary to nearly all blogs so was inevitably going to fail. A tour around the blogging world will confirm that most people write about themselves first and their subject(s) next. In fact many write just about themselves and not much more. The idea here was that Blacka Moor should be the subject, the whole subject and ‘nowt but’. The first title chosen was Blacka Moor – A Sense of Place. After a bit that started to look clichéd and even pretentious so the last four words were quietly dropped. But there had been some point in that original title. And it did bring in the human element by implication. The personal subtext says that knowing one place well makes a difference to people. It gives a person a feeling of having roots - even if those roots have been transplanted from a different beginning. And keeping in touch with the ground in which those roots grow gives a certain perspective on the world. It would be absurdly fanciful to believe it makes you a better person but at least plausible that it makes you a different kind of person to those who drift from one novel experience to another without reflecting. A sense of place is about the character and atmosphere of a place and about the way the senses respond to the experience of it day by day. People may be untutored in ecology and inexpert in the identification of flora and fauna but still be authoritative to a degree on the character and sense of a place; and that is an aspiration not a claim.
1 comment:
Beg to disagree about the failed blog idea. From another continent, I have come to appreciate the moor about which you write. I am de-lurking to let you know that there are not very many blogs I follow every day, but, I check the Blacka Moor feed every day that I am logged in.
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